


New Beginnings

by teamchaosprez



Series: Overwatch 1920s AU [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 1903, Boats and Ships, Childhood, Childhood Friends, First Meetings, Gen, it's just the backstory of how they met they are smol children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9315104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamchaosprez/pseuds/teamchaosprez
Summary: The year is 1903, and eleven year old Angela Ziegler is on her way to America alone... although she is about to meet someone who will change her life forever. Belongs to my 1920s AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a little backstory for fareeha and angela this time!!! obviously this takes place abt 20 years before just for tonight and flying low & flying high. see there's more to the story of this au than widowtracer

The year was 1903, and Angela Ziegler was eleven years old. Her father was dead, and her mother was following; they had gotten very sick. Her mother had sent her all alone on a boat to live with her aunt and uncle in America, to find a good life and a better future than what being orphaned and without any relatives in Switzerland would do for her. She didn’t want to leave her mother when she needed someone the most, but she had no choice, and so she sat alone on a boat called Misery with her sack of bread and potatoes and a small letter from her parents written before her father died.

They had planned this ahead of time, as soon as her father got sick, and though Angela loved both of them very much she couldn’t help but feel betrayed that she was being sent away from her home without knowing that it was coming as soon beforehand as possible. The anger had been eased somewhat by the promise that her uncle had already paid for tuition to a nice private school so that she could continue towards her dream of becoming a doctor and helping people, and she had been promised that if her mother was still alive when she got to America she would buy a telephone and talk to her every day until she no longer could; now, Angela was just sad. And alone.

There was a group of boys on the boat, running around and causing trouble for anyone that they passed. Angela watched them with narrowed blue eyes, hoping that they wouldn’t figure out where she was and cause  _ her _ any strife. She wasn’t really afraid of them, but she didn’t know much about self defense; she was a lady with plenty of book smarts, so she never felt the need to learn how to fight, much less against five rowdy boys a few years older than her.

Unfortunately, luck was no more on her side in travelling than in her parents’ health. One of them, a tall and scrawny boy, noticed her sitting by herself by the cabin and approached with a smile that was anything but reassuring. “Say, d’you have any food on you?” he asked, leaning in close to her face and chuckling when she backed against the wall. “‘Cause my friends and I are really hungry, and we’d like to borrow some… or all of it.”

Angela didn’t respond aloud, but her grip tightened on the burlap sack clutched tightly in one of her pale hands, and the boy’s gaze turned to it. That seemed to be answer enough for him, and he made a grab for it; the girl quickly stepped out of the way in time to keep her grip on her food, but found herself scooped up in the grip of one of the bigger boys, the ringleader quickly snatching her bag of food from her hand with a cruel chuckle. “Give it back!” she demanded, squirming to try and get out of the bigger boy’s grip - the lot of them only laughed at her, but whether it was for her accent or her attempt at getting away, she really had no idea.

After teasing her for a moment by holding her food close and then ripping it back away before she could grab it, the bigger boy dropped her and the ringleader laughed at her again before turning to leave with his posse. Angela had tears of frustration and despair in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall, not wanting the situation to get any worse for her - the girl stood up and dusted herself off, cheeks burning in humiliation for letting herself be robbed.

Before she could really give up hope, though, a girl with dark skin and fire in her eyes seemingly just a couple of years younger than her dashed to her side. She stood with her chin held high despite being rather short and scrawny, and Angela couldn’t help but watch her with wide and curious eyes. The girl spoke in heated Arabic, and though the Swiss girl couldn’t understand a word of it she supposed it was something that equated to sticking up for her.

The boys laughed at the girl’s attempt, and Angela was about to just take her by the shoulder and say that it wasn’t worth it, but before she got the chance to the stranger just stepped closer and puffed out her chest, dark eyes narrowing into a glare. “Give her the bag you took, or I will serve justice and you will not like it very much,” she demanded in thickly accented but clean English, surprisingly intimidating for a girl that couldn’t be older than nine or ten. Honestly, Angela sort of hoped that the boys continued to be difficult, because she wanted to see what her new friend would do.

They did, snorting and muttering amongst themselves momentarily before chuckling. The ringleader of the boys stepped forward and shoved the small girl from her shoulder, giving her a grin that contested Angela’s vow of pacifism and sort of made her want to punch him in the face. Said girl seemed to be startled for a moment, but quickly got over it, her glare darkening as she reeled back her fist before driving it forward to collide with the scrawny adolescent’s face at full force.

The boy let out a startled cry, his hands flying up to his face. A collective “ohhhh” sounded from his friends, and when he looked up there was absolute death in his eyes that honestly terrified Angela quite a bit. Internally, she decided that she needed to learn how to fight, because she honestly felt very useless as the girl faced the bullies with all of the confidence of a one woman army marching into battle in a body of strong armor. “You little shit,” he growled out in a dark tone, lunging forward to grab onto the girl’s frame and pummel her…

Only for her to step out of the way and crack her elbow hard on the back of his head, watching with a cold gaze as he fell to the floor, knocked out. Angela knew that people only stayed unconscious for a few seconds, and the boy’s friends seemed to be too shocked to stop her, so she quickly grabbed her sack of food off of the floor and grabbed onto her new friend’s hand, sprinting off with her in tow. “Thank you,” she breathed out, warmth and gratitude filling her chest as she shot her new best friend a bright smile. She hoped they ended up living near each other in America; already she wanted to be her friend for the rest of their lives.

“You’re welcome,” the girl replied, her smile equally bright. “Somebody had to stick up to those jerks. They have been terrorizing innocent people on the boat since we left Britain. My mother complained to the staff, but nobody seems to want to do anything about it.” She shrugged as if this was a normal thing that was to be expected; in the back of Angela’s mind, she thought that this girl would make a wonderful police officer. “My name is Fareeha Amari! What is yours?”

“Angela Ziegler,” she answered, taking more pride in her surname than usual; she was the last to carry it, even if nobody knew of the successful businessman and kind nurse that made up her parents outside of the small village where she’d been raised. “I am going to New York to live with my uncle! I want to be a doctor someday, but I could not continue to get a good education if I stayed in Switzerland. Why did you leave where you came from? And where are you going?”

“I’m going to New York too!” Fareeha spoke with a bright and energetic tone, and Angela felt happier around this girl than she had since her father died. Though, when the younger girl’s brows furrowed and a small frown appeared on her face, she became a little concerned. “I’m not sure why we are leaving Egypt, though. Mama has not explained that clearly to me yet. But I am sure she will!” That didn’t last long, the smile returning to her face almost as soon as it had left. “Where are your parents? It might be a little dangerous to be wandering a ship all by yourself if you cannot fight!”

Angela’s expression fell immediately at the question, a small tight spot entering her heart once more as a painful sigh ran through her. “My father died a week ago, and my mother is very sick with the same illness that killed him. She sent me alone to live with my aunt and uncle so that I would not have to live an orphan’s life in my little village and leave the best education I could get.” She knew their reasoning, and their reasoning was logical. That was all she really had to deal with this pain. Logic.

“Oh,” was all Fareeha said for a moment, seemingly trying to figure out what to say in response. She supposed this was a difficult thing to manage when it was happening to a friend, too. She understood. “Well, you can stay with me and my mother until we get to New York! She’s a little strict sometimes, but she’s really nice, I promise,” she spoke enthusiastically, practically bouncing on her heel a little, and she seemed so excited about the proposition that Angela couldn’t help but nod in response.

And so her new friend pulled ahead, still holding her hand, and led her to a little corner of the cabins where a woman with a kind face that looked remarkably like Fareeha’s sat alone, preparing tea on a stove in the little kitchen that the passengers had been provided with. Fareeha let go of her hand rather soon after entering the room and spoke to her mother in excited Arabic. The woman looked up from the tea that she was making and responded in a scolding tone, to which her daughter sighed in exasperation and replied in a more annoyed voice.

The women sighed and shook her head at her daughter before turning to Angela, and the Swiss girl straightened up and gave a small curtsy in an attempt to show some respect. The adult chuckled a little at that, and reached out to gently take her hands. “I’m terribly sorry, my dear. I’m Ana Amari - is my Fareeha bothering you at all? I’ve told her not to start trouble with other passengers, but she isn’t very good at following instructions.” A glare was pointed back at her child, and Angela had to hold back an amused giggle at the affection that lay beneath it. It made her miss her own mother, though that wasn’t quite enough to quell the excitement at having made a new friend with a nice mother.

“Oh, no, ma’am. She actually helped me deal with some bullies that tried to take my food!” the older of the two children responded, blue eyes twinkling for the first time in what must have been forever, “I’m very grateful to her for her help, and I’m very glad to call her my friend. She was just taking me back here to meet you and talk with you! Um, I am Angela Ziegler, by the way.”

“Is that so?” Ana let out a small chuckle, letting go of Angela’s hands in order to sit down back where she was before. “Well, I am very glad to meet you, Angela… and I’m very proud of Fareeha for standing up for you.” She shot a smile at her daughter before pouring some tea into a couple of cups, reaching back for her set in order to pull out a third. “Would you like to stay in here for some tea and tell me what happened? I do hope it happened to be those troublemakers bothering everyone on deck.”

Angela nodded happily, reaching out with a small “thank you” to take her cup of tea and seating herself on the ground, Fareeha bouncing over and sitting next to her as her mother handed her a steaming cup as well.

The two children then recounted the story of how they became friends, Fareeha doing most of the talking with Angela piping in with a comment every now and again. Her chest was warm with the happiness of a new friendship and the kindness of the atmosphere, and against the tea that she brought to her lips, she smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> comments wld be nice but i am v attached to this au so pls be gentle
> 
> i play overwatch on xbox one btw, i play a lot of sombra, widow, d.va, and pharah. my xbox live is teamchaosprez if u wanna hmu


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